The AI Agents Vendor Checklist: 20 Questions to Ask Before You Buy

Description

Gartner expects more than 40% of agentic AI projects to be canceled by the end of 2027, because of rising costs, unclear business value and weak risk controls. Most of those problems are visible before you sign, if you know what to ask. That’s harder than it sounds when thousands of vendors sell “agentic AI” and only a fraction offer real agentic capabilities.

This checklist gives you 20 questions to ask every AI agent vendor, covering accuracy, security, cost and fit with your existing systems. Each one comes with why it matters, what a good answer sounds like and the red flag to watch for.

Inside, you’ll learn:

• How to check your own house first, with five questions your team should answer before the first vendor call.
• Which questions belong to your data lead, CISO, CFO, architects and product leaders, so the right person judges every answer.
• What separates real answers from vague promises, from certified metrics and row-level permissions to predictable pricing and no forced data migration.
• How to run a two-week proof test on your own data, with real permissions, to see which vendor claims hold.
• How to score every vendor on the same 40-point scale, and how a ready-to-send email gets vendors to show proof before the demo.

Download the checklist, send the questions before your next demo, and spend the call on evidence, not slides.